


lost to stormy weather (i am ready)

by ForestBlue (forestblue)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, I wouldn't write anything more scarring than that, and her emotional journey as she comes to accept being part of TMN, i ship them but i think yasha needs to get through some of her shit first, so it's just a few tiny moments that hint at more to come, the death is Molly's don't worry, there's just the tiniest hint of beauyasha, this is basically an exploration of yasha's character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 18:20:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17431091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestblue/pseuds/ForestBlue
Summary: Yasha runs away, again and again, until she doesn't anymore.An exploration of Yasha's character based on Ashley Johnson's playlist and some ideas that had been growing in my head since we learned more about her backstory.





	lost to stormy weather (i am ready)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashley Johnson](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ashley+Johnson).



> Let me preface this by saying that it is NOT a romance story. It is a story about loss and grief, about being lost in anger and pain, about finding your way back to the light. It is a story about how your heart can heal if you let it. A story about losing love and finding family, then opening your heart once more for the possibility for love. After Yasha's backstory was revealed, I just needed to write her journey up until the present (my own take on it, at least). I was just blown away by the emotions that Ashley managed to elicit out of everyone at the table, out of me, out of so many people watching. 
> 
> I also listened to the playlist she made for Yasha, and... well, I could feel Yasha's bleeding heart all over those songs. So the title is inspired by two songs from the playlist, Fire Under Water by Girl Blue and My Friends by Oh Wonder. Oh, and if you haven't watched the Mollymauk animatic that's made with My Friends, go watch it so that your heart can shatter into a million pieces, too. I cry every single time I watch it.
> 
> Well, without further ado, here's the story. Hope you like it.

_“Yasha, run!”_

It was the last time Yasha heard her name for a very long time, Zuala’s cry echoing in the empty marshlands in the short moment of terrified silence after three clansmen subdued her and pushed her to her knees. Four more were chasing after Yasha, their sloshing footsteps blurring in the back of her mind into an uncoordinated wet march of impending doom.

She could taste death on the tip of her tongue, she could smell the thick, heavy fog of it coming down, down upon the unchanging grey landscape that would be the only witness to the end of her hope. She could no longer hear, only felt her wife’s frantic breaths, her hopeful stare spurring her onward.

The sound of mud under her feet ebbed. The angry yells of her people faded. If there was a thwack and the sound of a body slumping somewhere far behind her, she couldn’t hear it. The steady pattering of cold raindrops on her skin beat a numbing rhythm into her ears. The water soaked her to the bone until each step was more of a shiver than a willful act.

She kept running.

 

* * *

 

 

And then the rage set in. It would be easy to say she saw red, and then the red turned to black, and then she remembered nothing. Indeed, most of the time she believed it to be true herself. On some nights, though, her mind remembered, showed her the horrors her hands were capable of, the carnage that she alone had carved in her madness.

_“Your anger is beautiful to behold, Orphan-maker.”_

She forgot; or, needed to. But it was always there, a heavy weight in her gut – the name bestowed upon her. A reminder of her place in the world. She knew she could not escape it. Could not alter her fate. She was meant to kill.

But one day, months after the patch of darkness that seized her mind and body, she awoke in light. In front of her, an altar to the Stormlord, blood spilling from her hands onto its base. And among the offerings placed upon the stone, a silver hand mirror. She took it and looked. She saw…

She didn’t know who she saw. Who was staring back at her. The rage was gone, tears of fear streaking down an unfamiliar face with dark hair and soulless eyes. The mirror fell from her hands, the glass shattering into pieces. A deafening crack sounded from above. Rain washed the blood away. A shock of pain shot through her veins. She looked up. The symbol of the Stormlord called to her.

She answered willingly. She did not need to know herself to follow.

 

* * *

 

 

The storms guided her out of Xhorhas. Exhausted and blind to anything else but angry clouds and cracks of thunder, she did not even notice the grass under her feet until she found herself in front of a strange, colorful tent at the edge of a town.

She looked down at her feet, surprised to feel a different softness unlike the muddy marshlands of the north. And there it was, a green so vibrant she did not know if it was real or if she had finally succumbed to a fever.

Among the soft grass there were tiny little rounded leaves. She bent down to pick one and was surprised by its beautiful shape: four little green leaves forming a kind of flower together. She held it gingerly, afraid to ruin its perfect, fragile symmetry with calloused fingers that had grasped weapons and throats for so long that they felt empty without them, fingers unworthy to hold tender things.

She must have stared at the flower ( _four-leafed clover_ , she’d later learn) for minutes, or hours, or eternities. It was the first time in a long time when she felt something other than anger, or fear, or blind determination, and she wanted to hold on to it.

A melodic laugh startled her out of her daze. She managed to not crush the flower.

“A lucky one, you are!” a purple tiefling with an easy smile was sauntering towards her as if he wasn’t the least bit scared by her appearance.

“Lucky?” she repeated dumbly in a voice scratchy from disuse.

“Of course! I’ve been scouring the grass for a four-leafed clover for _days_ now, and here you are, barely arrived in town and plucking one on your first try,” he winked at her and started dramatically clapping.

She blinked, looking from the strange horned man to the flower – the _four-leafed clover_ – and back to the man again.

“Bravo. _Brava_ , even. Say, with your extreme luck, would you be interested in joining our carnival?”

“Carnival?” she could only repeat his words again, rendered speechless by seeing a smile directed at her. She looked behind her just to make sure. There was no one else.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! Do you see any _other_ gorgeous giant woman holding a four-leafed clover?”

She looked around once more and didn’t know whether to feel relief or anxiety at not seeing anyone else but the tiefling and herself.

“Uh, no.”

“Well, good. It would have been embarrassing if not one, but _two_ people had beaten me to finding a lucky clover,” he laughed at his own joke. He noticed that his new companion was not amused and sobered up as much as he could, only the hint of an amused smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

“Would you like me to read your fortune? Free of charge, of course. I feel like there’s something special about you and I’ll regret it if I don’t get you to stay at least a little while longer,” he plopped down in the grass and beckoned her to do the same.

“I highly doubt it,” and yet she stupidly followed suit.

“Don’t be a downer. Here, pick a card,” he shuffled a fancy looking deck and fanned out the cards in front of her. She chose one with her free hand and showed it to him.

“The _clover_ ,” his eyes widened. “Would you look at that. I _knew_ there was something special about you- uh, what was your name again?”

She handed him back the card unimpressed.

“You didn’t ask. And you’re cheating, somehow.”

“I’m not, I swear on the Platinum Dragon! That was all you, my lady,” he shrugged, “all you, and a little bit of _luck_ ,” he paused, running his tongue over his lips in thought, and pinned her with a curious stare. “And, well, I’m asking now.”

“I- Yasha. My name is Yasha.”

 

* * *

 

 

Mollymauk Tealeaf was a strange one. For one, his fortunes were absolute bullshit and yet all his customers were completely content paying to hear about their fake bright futures. Yasha did not understand the need to fool oneself with such stories, but she did not want to ruin their happiness or risk having them ask for a refund. And somehow, this lying lavender bastard convinced her to stay. The sun shone brilliantly above the tent wherever they went, and though it was overwhelming to be in such bright light, Yasha never saw a storm on the horizon. The Stormlord wanted her to stay, so who was she to defy his will?

Mollymauk had noticed her carrying the ‘lucky’ clover around on those first days and bought her a leather-bound journal, taught her how to keep pressed flowers; taught her about daffodils and marigolds and daisies.

He showed her how to pitch the tent, marveled at her strength. He helped her buy new clothes, unsoiled by blood and past offense. He accompanied her to taverns and let himself be drunk under the table by his new stoic companion who would sometimes crack a smile at his jokes.

Somehow, Yasha made a friend.

 

* * *

 

 

She told him one night, with a storm rolling in. She told him everything. And as she heard the pattering of the rain hitting the tent above them, filling the silence, she thought _‘this is it, this is how I lose another one’_.

But she had not lost him. He had only needed a moment to gather himself. He put his hand on her shoulder and she did not flinch at the touch – anymore.

“Yasha, it was not your fault. _Love_ is not _anyone’s_ fault.”

“I- I know. I don’t think it was wrong for us to love each other. To marry. It felt right. But… but in the end, it was wrong in the eyes of the tribe and that was all that mattered, there,” she finished bitterly.

“And does it still matter here? Are you not allowed to be happy ever again because of it?”

“That’s not- it’s not so simple. We- in my tribe, we mate for life. Zuala… she is my heart, even if she’s gone.”

“Is that what she would want for you? Don’t you think she’d want you to be happy?”

Yasha growled.

“You don’t _know_ what she would want, that’s the point! She’s not _here_ to want anything anymore!”

She got up, preparing to leave towards the storm. As she picked her journal up, Molly sighed and closed his eyes. She felt a change in the air and turned back towards him. He opened his eyes, and through them stared a completely different man, confused and pained and _lost_.

“I don’t know who I am.”

“What?”

“My name, everything I told you this far. It’s a lie. I don’t know who I am. I can’t remember. I woke up buried in the dirt, knowing nothing but the need to get to air.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Yasha recognized herself in someone else and didn’t feel terrified by it. She didn’t know herself. He didn’t, either. Was that so terrible? She looked down at her blackened hair.

“I’m sorry.”

She still left.

 

* * *

 

 

She came back after a few days, rejoined the troupe, helped them gather up the tent and get everything ready for the trip to the next town. Molly acted as if her leaving wasn’t a big deal, as if he understood why she did it. As if he knew she’d come back.

(She didn’t.)

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe if she knew that their lives were going to be upended, she wouldn’t have returned. Maybe if she knew she’d meet a brash and handsome and _very forward_ woman who had a spark of _something_ in her eyes when she flirted that made Yasha flirt _back_. Maybe if she knew that Gustav and the others would be put out of work, ruined. That the carnival would be gone. Yasha ruined everything she touched. She should have learned by then.

Maybe if she had left Molly when the group left Trostenwald. Maybe if she hadn’t followed him, followed them to Zadash. If she had kept her distance, then maybe…

Maybe.

 

* * *

 

 

The slavers took them in the night. Yasha, Fjord, Jester. They all fought against their binds, screamed, thrashed, tried to will themselves to escape. It did not work.

Yasha knew the others well enough by now to know that they would follow. That they would come for them, that they were strong enough to _win_.

So she closed herself off and _endured_. The longer she endured, the more the Iron Shepherds would focus on her and less on Jester and Fjord. They were strong, too, but Yasha knew they wouldn’t last very long. Torture was different than combat.

Jester still surprised her with her strength. Her silly jokes and songs pulled a small smile out of Yasha in the darkness of her cage now and then, when none of the Shepherds were around to see.

(If they saw, they would use it against her. Hurt Jester to break her. She wouldn’t lose another one.)

After a particularly long and painful session, the torturer put a spell on her. Yasha felt her consciousness fading and felt fear for the first time since Zuala’s capture.

She was powerless once more.

 

* * *

 

 

She woke up in a cart with no bindings. They came, of course they did. They won. Groggy and slightly grumpy as she always was when waking up, she didn’t immediately notice what they were all looking at, huddled close to each other and standing quite silent and still.

As she got closer, she felt a chill creeping up her spine. Molly. Where was Molly? What were they looking at? What was going on?

She pushed through and saw his coat. The makeshift grave.

_No._

“It happened again,” a voice that sounded like hers said, but she was already too numb to feel it.

Beau and Jester came to comfort her. She pushed them away in anger and unfurled her wings, screaming into the heavens. In the distance, thunder rolled and crackled over the hills. Yasha ruined everything she touched.

She left her friends. They thought they needed her, but they didn’t. They needed her to keep her distance. They needed to have a chance at happy lives. She remembered the four-leafed clover in her journal, now dried up, a crumbling symbol of her luck.

Yasha did not believe in luck, but she was a curse.

 

* * *

 

 

She was not ready to see them in Nicodranas. They seemed happy, busy; she felt relieved but also sad knowing that they were fine without her. Better without her. They had a new friend, Caduceus. She had seen him then, when Molly was… gone. He helped in the fight against the Shepherds. She didn’t hate him; he seemed nice. She resented him a little, though. He could stay with The Nein; he healed them and cooked food for them. And Yasha…

Nott hugged her. It felt… strange, but good. They all seemed so happy to see her. She was, too, but she knew she could not stay with them if she wanted them to be safe. Perhaps if she kept her distance, if it was all business, if she just used them to get to where the Stormlord wanted her. Yes, that seemed like a good idea.

And then The Mighty Nein got stuck on a ship.

 

* * *

 

 

It was crazy, being on the ocean. She had only been on small boats before, so navigating through the seemingly endless blue made Yasha restless. She spent most nights on the deck, always on the lookout for a storm. None came.

They were captured by pirates, forced to follow Avantika’s will. Yasha did not have anything against piracy, but she would have preferred that The Nein make their own choices. Still, Avantika led them closer to what Fjord was searching for, and Yasha understood his need to search for answers. She followed, trusting blindly in her friends, knowing that when the time came, they would escape.

And escape they did. Yasha did not look away when the Plank King snapped Avantika’s neck. A pirate’s life was not commendable or honorable, but to be killed on the spot… The whole affair just struck something in her. But it wasn’t her place to question the ways of pirates. She had long been out of her element, ever since she stepped foot on southern grass.

 

* * *

 

 

And then came the ‘fun ball of tricks’. Yasha was amused by the tiny, hyperactive Twiggy and her excitement at interacting with The Nein. Yasha could relate; her friends brought smiles and laughter even out of her. There were moments when she felt almost at peace. How could one _not_ be excited to be around them?

The ball, however, Yasha did not like from the beginning. Balls were dangerous. The dodecahedron was going to one day get them into serious trouble – everything coming from Xhorhas would, Yasha knew all too well. Uk’otoa’s ( _Uk’otoa… Uk’otoa…_ ) spheres could ultimately unleash a huge demi-god serpent upon the world. She was certain that this third arcane ball spelled nothing good.

She was right. A strange light had come through the cracks all the way up to the deck where Yasha had been sitting, content with letting her friends play with their newest toy. Maybe if she had insisted that they don’t, if she had at least gone with them. Maybe if she had distrusted Twiggy enough to throw her overboard. Maybe she wouldn’t be staring at Caleb’s empty room, the magic ball the only sign that The Nein were ever there.

 

* * *

 

 

Yasha spent hours and hours searching for them in that tiny room. She touched every single bit of wood, tore the place apart then put it back together as she knew that Caleb would not appreciate his things being in disarray when he returned. _If_ he returned.

She sat down frustrated and tried to unlock the secrets of the sphere. Something magical had happened – she could feel it in the air. Something magical had happened, and her friends disappeared, and the only thing left was this _stupid_ ball!

She tried turning the bits and pieces, the rotating mechanisms like she had seen both Twiggy and Caleb do, but nothing budged under her clumsy fingers. She put it back on the floor. She felt her hands getting twitchy, felt herself getting angry. She did not want to break the ball. Well, she did, but it was the only hope she had of getting her friends back.

She sat in the room every day, guarding the ball with her life. As each day passed, she felt like this was it. It had happened again. This time, taking _all_ the people that she cared about in one swoop. They were dead. They had to be. Or maybe they just left her, realizing that they did not need her and her sword at their side, not now that they had Caduceus and Twiggy.

She had been about to go up on the deck and look for a storm when the ball made a noise. And then poof! Beau appeared out of nowhere, looking very surprised to see Yasha and the crew staring at her in disbelief. Then Fjord. Caduceus. Caleb. Nott, barely alive. Jester, injured and shaken. Twiggy, ecstatic because she… killed a dragon?

Yasha could barely hear them talk. Blood pumped in her ears painfully. As soon as they decided to rest and reconvene the next morning, she locked herself in her room and let herself sleep on a bed for the first time in a week.

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, she was alone again. For a moment, she was terrified that she had dreamt it all up, the return of her friends. But as she went towards Caleb’s room, Marius stopped her from entering, saying that Caleb had asked to not be disturbed.

“Oh. Good.”

Then they were alive. She made her way off the ship and onto the isle, finding The Nein a little ways away chatting over breakfast. It made her angry. It made her feel forgotten.

They were apologetic when they realized they forgot to wake her, gave her a big plate of food and two mugs of mead. Jester was very sad. Yasha hated to see the sadness peeking through the cracks of Jester’s mask, to watch her friend unravel. She asked about what happened in the ball.

Jester had almost died to a dragon, and Yasha knew it would have all been her fault. If she had been there, they would have killed it and gotten its riches, too. And Jester would have been safe. She did not want to burden her friend with her guilt, so she shrugged as if a dragon was no big deal, made a joke about running out of notches on her belt. It pulled a smile out of Jester, and she felt the rest of the party relax a bit, too. They had been tense, probably expecting Yasha to leave again.

She was expecting it, too.

 

* * *

 

 

The Stormlord’s words echoed in her mind long after the fight was over. Yasha felt overwhelmed with hope and grief, unable still to figure out how to best protect what was important to her. _Who_ was important to her.

After their talk, Caduceus left to go to sleep along with Jester but instead came back a little later with a bit of fermented fruit juice. It wasn’t exactly wine, but Yasha appreciated the gesture, nonetheless.

“If there was ever a time to try the alcohol I’ve been trying to make, I figure that this is it,” he offered her a mug.

Yasha drank deeply. It tasted of fruit and honey and decay. She liked it.

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiled his easy smile and turned his gaze upon the stars.

She looked up at the clear sky. There was no sign there had been a storm only hours before, the stars twinkling softly above.

“You know, I think you’ve been sad for too long. Do you even know how to be happy anymore?”

“I- don’t know. I feel happy, sometimes. When Jester plays a prank. When Nott is brave even without drinking. When Beau…” she swallowed her words, feeling guilty for even thinking them.

“You’re allowed to be happy, Yasha.”

She got up and turned away from Caduceus, rattled by the déjà vu. She felt her anger coming just as quickly as it had with Molly.

“Don’t tell me what I’m allowed. You don’t know what Zuala wants because she’s _dead_! She _can’t_ want anything anymore,” she took a long drink from the makeshift booze.

“I wasn’t going to say that. Of course she can’t want anything anymore. Zuala is gone, and she’s not coming back. I think your flowers are very nice and a good way to honor her memory, to keep her in your heart. She’ll always be there with you, but… she’s gone. And I think happiness is not impossible after loss.”

Yasha felt bad for getting mad at him. Caduceus understood her better than she expected. She sat back down next to him.

“So, my question was: what do _you_ want?”

Yasha felt a tear fall down her cheek. Nobody had cared about what _she_ wanted for so long. She closed her eyes and thought of hunting with Zuala, smiling at the memory. She thought of playing cards with Molly the night before a show. She thought of Nott bringing her flowers, of her sheltering the little goblin from the storm. Of shaving Caleb’s beard with her sword. Of Beau’s awestruck gaze as she tried to compliment Yasha’s eyes.

She opened her eyes.

“I don’t know… I don’t know. I think… I want to try.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would really love to know what you thought, so leave a comment here or send me an ask at forest-blue on tumblr. I worked really hard on this story, put a lot of thought and feeling into it, so I'm really curious what people's reactions will be. Also, regarding the flowers I mentioned Molly teaching Yasha about, look their meanings up on Wikipedia ;) Hope you all have a wonderful week and is it Thursday yet? <3


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